Section

Location

Appearances

Codex text

And so is the Golden City blackened
With each step you take in my Hall.
Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting.
You have brought Sin to Heaven
And doom upon all the world.

—Canticle of Threnodies 8:13

There is very little of the infamous Thirteenth Verse that we can take literally. It speaks in the voice of the Maker Himself; since He has never deigned to speak to His children directly, we can rest assured it is a work of fiction. There are facts, however, that support it, at least in part. Records remain from the time prior to the First Blight saying that, yes, seven magisters did open a portal to enter the Fade physically. These seven—whose true names we have lost either to legend or deliberate obscurement—did so at the behest of the Old Gods, who "whispered from their ancient prisons." We also know that the Golden City, visible from every part of the Fade by any mage at the time, turned black as night the moment these seven breached its gates. Everything else—the accusations of "sin", the suggestion that these seven became the first darkspawn, that they were directly responsible for the Blights to come—all of that is conjecture.